Getting Caught
by Kasey22
Summary: Based on the few fics out there where Margaret drives to Hawkeye and then chickens out and drives home again. I thought, what if he catches her? Rated for one bad word. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the storyline

A/N: Based on the few fics out there where Margaret drives to Hawkeye and then chickens out and drives home again. I thought, what if he catches her?

xoxox

Margaret squeezed the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white and then released it, hoping to alleviate some of the tension of the drive. She'd been on the road for days, but the drive itself isn't nearly as scary as what is at the end of it. _Who_ is at the end of it.

Today was the day. After three days in the car she was half way through her week's vacation; would be arriving at her destination soon. The highway was becoming less populated the farther she got from New York City, and the culture and charm of New England were beginning to work their magic on her. It truly was a beautiful place. She could understand why he loved it so.

Spotting her exit, Margaret eased off the highway and onto the slow country roads of Maine. She rolled her window down and could almost detect a hint of salt in the air. The ocean, after all, was somewhere close by.

By following the signs, she found herself guided to the little Main Street that held Crabapple Cove's diner, pharmacy, one-screen movie theatre, city hall and hardware store. There were a few other buildings in town, tucked into corners with shingles out, but she couldn't look at them.

Margaret pulled up outside the diner and let the engine idle for a moment. This was it. Now or never. Kill or be killed. Wait, that last one wasn't right. Korea is where that last one belonged. Not on this tree-lined utopia. With a grimace of pain mixed with apprehension, she got out of the car and entered the little restaurant.

She paused just inside the door letting her eyes sweep over the few customers taking in the late afternoon quiet of the place. That was the first big hurdle. If he were here she couldn't have said she might have done. But he wasn't, so Margaret walked to the counter, her loose cotton skirt gently swaying with her hips. She noticed a few patrons noticing.

At the counter she ordered a coke and asked to use the payphone. The teenager behind the counter took her order with something bordering on boredom and pointed toward the back of the building.

She found the phone booth easily enough and she closed the door behind her tightly, wanting to seal off anything from the town. Without so much as a glance at the receiver, Margaret lifted the wispy-thin book from the little shelf beneath the phone and opened it to the page she wanted.

There. Just as she'd suspected. _Pierce_, she read, _B.F., 21 Pike Trail._

How she had known it would be here, was anyone's guess. Actually, it was her guess; a hunch she'd had way back in the spring. It had taken all summer to work up the courage to make the drive and now with fall beating a path over the landscape, here she was, staring at his address.

She gave a quick laugh of disbelieve and quickly stifled it, leaving behind only a ragged gasp of air.

Margaret closed the book with her usual air of efficiency and left the little booth in the back. Once at the counter again, she paid for her untouched beverage and said, "How do you get to Pike Trail from here?"

The bored teenager gave her directions and she was gone before he could say that she'd forgotten her drink.

Once back in the car fear gripped her stomach and threatened to do worse. Praying she wouldn't throw up, Margaret shifted into gear and headed off in the direction she believed would take her to him.

Two miles down this road, turn left at the old bridge, follow that another half-mile, make another left. 21 would be on the left.

And it was. Margaret pulled over to the right and stared out the driver's side window at the little house with a mailbox that said, "Pierce, B.F."

The driveway was empty and the house appeared to be deserted. Thank God, she suddenly thought, terrified at being found here. How desperate was she, anyway? She had just driven one thousand miles without even calling him in advance to make sure he'd be there. In her heart she knew that she'd been afraid he'd tell her he was busy. She'd thought it would be better this way: I'm in town for a conference, and thought I'd look you up.

Pathetic, she thought to herself, looking down at her lap now. Her hands lay motionless on her thighs. Empty hands. Hands that no longer did what she told them to do. Desperate for a change and exhausted from trying to be normal, she'd taken her vacation and mapped out a trip to the one person she'd thought she could count on.

But now this. God, how she hated this vulnerability. She wasn't some fragile female, she was Major Fucking Houlihan, U.S. Army! Damn him, anyway, for making her think that she could come to him! Why couldn't he have stayed a bastard instead of making her love him the way she did. Making her _unable_ to love anyone else.

Overpowered by the rush of anger, she lifted a hand to rub her tired eyes, wondering where the nearest motel might be. She'd find it, give herself a nice long night of sleep and then head back in the morning. Subconsciously, this was probably what she'd planned all along. Planning a three-day drive to get where you were going with only a week's vacation and the necessity of getting back to where you'd started by the end of the week seemed to indicate that she might have brought this on herself.

She sighed, exhausted, and moved her hand from her tired eyes to the steering wheel. As she did so, she focused once again on the road ahead of her and saw from the opposite end of the street a car coming toward her. Coming toward her and slowing.

No! It couldn't be him! He couldn't see her like this! It was too pathetic! But she couldn't move, either. All she could do was stare through her windshield, and his windshield, and find his eyes with her own. His eyes that had seemed to hold all the hurt in the world when they were in Korea now stabbed her first in disbelief, then in accusation and finally in understanding. He slowed down and parked so that his driver's side window was even with hers and they devoured each other without any glass getting in the way.

She wanted to run; put the car in gear and hit the gas, skip the motel, find the highway and drive until it didn't hurt anymore. He, stunned, perhaps for the first time in his life, into silence, simply drank in her familiar and dear features as if committing them to memory, or perhaps as if he were comparing them with the memory he already had of her.

Margaret swallowed and broke the spell by finally admitting, "I don't know why I'm here."

Hawkeye's face gentled into a smile so familiar to her that she wanted to weep. "That's okay," he said.

And it was.

End


End file.
